In America, 'work' is not a four-letter word

On the eve of Labor Day, a United Nations agency delivered a bleak message to American workers: Enjoy the day off, because you really, really need it. "U.S. workers are putting in the longest hours in the industrialized world, spending nearly one week more on the job than they did a decade ago," lamented the International Labor Organization. While people in other countries are working less, the ILO says, the typical American worked 36 more hours in 2000 than in 1990. This provoked the usual frenzy of hand-wringing from stalwart critics of the American economic system. They demand to know why we can't manage all the leisure time enjoyed by those civilized Europeans. Germans reportedly work an average of 499 fewer hours every year than we do, and British workers get 260 more free hours each year than stressed-out Yanks.

This came as especially important news to some readers who noted my recent claim that since 1950, the average American work week has shrunk from nearly 40 hours to less than 35. Relying on the ILO report, they leapt to the preposterous conclusion that I must be mistaken.

So let's take a closer look. The ILO report raises three important questions: Are Americans really working longer hours than before and longer hours than other people? If so, why are they doing that? And is it a bad thing to work more?

The answer to the first question is: Not necessarily. Measuring how much people work is not a simple task, and different gauges yield different answers. The U.S. Department of Labor says that work hours have been declining for decades. In 1960, the average was 38.6 hours a week; by 1990, it was 34.5 hours; and last year, it was still 34.5 hours.

Surveys by the Americans' Use of Time Project at the University of Maryland support the view that things haven't changed much. They indicate that the average person put in 40.9 hours a week in 1990, 42.4 in 1996, and 41.9 last year. Another survey, conducted by the NPD Group, a market research firm, found that the average person spent slightly less time working for pay in 1999 than in 1992.

If it's hard to pin down exactly how much time we devote to paid labor, it's even harder to tell how we stack up against foreigners. The ILO report contained this little-noticed caveat: "It must be recognized that there are important differences between economies regarding all measurements of hours of work, and that this will render inter-country and regional comparisons uncertain, at best."

Next to people in some advanced economies, Americans actually look pretty laid-back. The ILO says 74 percent of American men work more than 40 hours a week -- compared to 87 percent of those in Japan, 81 percent in New Zealand, 88 percent in Switzerland, and 89 percent in Luxembourg. Even among those easygoing Canadians, the figure is 71 percent, nearly as high as it is here.

But suppose we do work more than most Europeans. Is that because we're all being forced to? Or could there be some other explanation?

Maybe it's because our economy boomed in the 1990s. At the end of last year, the average unemployment rate in the countries of the European Union was nearly double what it was in the U.S. Losing your job is one sure way to work less.

Maybe we work harder than Germans and Brits because they're lazy. Maybe we do so because our economic system offers greater opportunity. Maybe it's because we have millions of immigrants -- most of whom didn't come here so they could sit on the porch and sip lemonade.

Maybe we still suspect that idle hands are the devil's workshop. Maybe we're overly fond of making money. Maybe we just like to work.

Last week, a worker in North Carolina interviewed by The New York Times expressed dissatisfaction with his leisure time: He had too much of it, because his heartless employer had cut his hours from 60 a week to 36. In a 1999 Gallup poll, only 18 percent of Americans said they were dissatisfied with the amount of work they were required to do.

Other evidence suggests that most people who put in long hours are not helpless victims. Dora Costa, an economist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, notes that in 1970, people at the bottom and top of the pay scale worked about the same number of hours each week. By 1998, those in the top 10 percent of earners worked about seven hours a week more than those in the lowest 10 percent. Is there a union for America's overworked executives?

Some people think Americans spend too much time earning a living. But if they're hoping to persuade us to change our ways, they've got a lot of work to do.

"U.S. workers are putting in the longest hours in the industrialized world, spending nearly one week more on the job than they did a decade ago," lamented the International Labor Organization.

That's so we can pay all the frieking taxes you United Nation's racists demand.

Europe's high unemployment and deteriorating work ethic suggests major problems in the future, e.g., bankruptcy of overly generous public welfare as the taxpaying base shrinks and the workers are hit with extreme taxation,

In America, 'work' is not a four-letter word

It is to the whiney "you owe me" liberal types.

What else are we going to do with all the time on our hands?
How much boob tube can we watch?
I like to believe that it is the work ethic that many of us were instilled with that causes the figures to skew in our direction. Do those with children instill a work ethic in their children?
I know that I do. My children receive an allowance for chores done around the house. They have the choice - no chores, no allowance. More chores, more allowance.
I have given them the benefit of my experience that you do the work BEFORE you get the raise.

I have given them the benefit of my experience that you do the work BEFORE you get the raise.

Makes perfect sense to me.

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